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This is a really great short explanation by Chris. I think it shows that the really power of JavaScript in the browser isn’t so much the language itself, but the DOM—the glue that ties the JavaScript to the HTML.

It reminds me of the old jQuery philosophy: find something and do stuff to it.

In many ways, moving to vanilla JavaScript highlights the ugliness of working with the DOM directly, and the shortcomings of native Element object — shortcomings which Resig solved so incredibly eloquently with the jQuery API.

Having said that, the lessons I’ve learned over the last year have made me a better developer, and the tools built in the process have opened my eyes and given me enough confidence and understanding of vanilla JavaScript that the only scenario where I would personally consider using jQuery again would be a project needing IE8 support.

I think we can all agree that “isomorphic JavaScript” is a terrible name for a good idea. I quite like calling it “portable JavaScript”, but here’s a good case for calling it “progressive JavaScript.”

(Right up until the end when the author says “But mainly, it’s pretty safe to assume JavaScript will just work. Everywhere.” …which is precisely the kind of unfounded assumption that leads to the very problems that isomorphic/portable/progressive JavaScript can help fix.)

It’s very early days for ServiceWorker, but Jake is on hand with documentation and instructions on its use. To be honest, most of this is over my head and I suspect it won’t really “click” until I try using it for myself.

Where it gets really interesting is in the comments. Stuart asks “What about progressive enhancement?” And Jake points out that because a ServiceWorker won’t be installed on a first visit, you pretty much have to treat it as an enhancement. In fact, you’d have to go out of your way to make it a requirement:

You could, of course, throw up a splash screen and wait for the ServiceWorker to install, creating a ServiceWorker-dependant experience. I will hunt those people down.

A handy resource if you’re used to using jQuery for everything but you want to try going JavaScript commando.

Don’t get me wrong: jQuery is great, but for a lot of projects, you might not need 90% of the functionality it provides. So try starting with vanilla JS and only pulling in jQuery if and when you need it.

A terrific piece by Remy—based on a talk he gave—on when he uses jQuery and, more importantly, when he doesn’t. His experiences and conclusions pretty much mirror my own, but of course Remy is far more thoughtful and smart than I.